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Does early entrance to center-based childcare alter children’s intestinal microbiota?

Henrik Eckermann, Gerben Hermes, Willem de Vos and Carolina de Weerth  
henrikeckermann87@gmail.com   github.com/HenrikEckermann

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1 Introduction

Research Question

  • Does entrance to center-based childcare at three months of age alter gut microbiota composition?

Motivation

  • Gut microbial composition plays an important role in physical and mental health.

  • Animal studies suggest:
    • a sensitive period in early life with regard to the influence of microbes on the host.
    • that early life stress disrupts the gut microbial ecosystem with negative health consequences.
  • Entering center-based childcare can be considered an early life stressor in humans that leads to prolonged increases in cortisol levels as compared to care in the home environment.

Contribution

  • To gain insight into environmental factors that might influence the early development of the gut microbiome.

2 Data and Methods

Research Design

  • Longitudinal study (BIBO Study)
  • Two groups: Childcare (n = 49) vs Home (n = 49)
  • Microbiota sampling pre- and 4 weeks post entrance into childcare (Home group had similar age and sampling time points).

Data

  • Microbial determination at genus like level with the Human Intestinal Tract Chip (HITChip)
  • Data was treated as compositional (centered-log-ratio-transformation)
  • Covariates: Breastfeeding (average feedings/day) and age

Statistical Analyses:

  • PCA (Aitchison distance)
  • PERMANOVA (Aitchison distance)
  • Hierarchical Linear Mixed Models (Gaussian family)
  • Bayesian Hierarchical Generalized Linear Models (Generalized normal distribution)
  • Random Forest Classification

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                                            3 Results: Aitchison distance between samples for Childcare (A1, A3) and Home (A2). Alpha diversity between groups (B)

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3 Results (continued)

  • no effect of childcare entrance on overall composition (A1-A3).
  • breastfeeding and age explain 3.5% of variation in overall composition.
  • slight decrease in alpha diversity in the childcare group (B).
  • significant differences in relative abundances between Childcare and Home after controlling for age and breastfeeding (red taxa in A1 - A3 indicate absolute log fold change \(\geq\) 0.2 \(\leq\) 1).
  • High individual variation: Many infants showed an opposite trend compared to the average effect with regard to relative abundances and alpha diversity (see paths in B).

4 Conclusion

  • Childcare entrance did not lead to a uniform change in gut microbiota composition.
  • Changes in microbiota composition between the time points were highly individual and driven by factors not captured in this study.

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